Five Out of Five Mullets Return to Valheim

The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show

After several weeks of intensive enjoyment from when it was first released in February of last year, my sons and I mostly gave up on Valheim, the best game of 2021 according to PC Gamer, after having some issues with the reliability of our private server. With a few brief, scattered exceptions, we haven't played it since.

Yesterday, we returned, to the wonderful world of Viking survival, to begin again with our characters where we left off. We were not disappointed.

It's still early, with a mere 4-5 hours so far for Josiah, Eli, Sol, Dan, and myself played together last night; but we're excited to have a fresh map, and build a new fort, and explore what updates to the game, as well as time since we last played, make at once both familiar and uncharted.

But this is a follow-up to the podcast episode I recorded back in February of 2021. And let me therefore double down on what has not changed in the way of my opinion. That is, playing a game like Valheim with my four older sons seems every bit as valid a way to build relational, communication, and teamwork skills as if they were to join a sports team.

And now we have four desktop computers, plus the trusty old gaming laptop. Where before we could only play three at a time, with my four older sons trading off two at a time, now all five of us can quest together simultaneously.

It really is glorious.

Yes, to the stodgy who are always ready to warn about the dangers of videogames, particularly their effect on morals and manliness, my enthusiastic claim will be met with skepticism, if not outright scoffing. But to my way of thinking, this is an excellent investment of our time and attention. And if it happens to be fun in the process, that is only all the better instead of worse.

Believe it or not, I will employ my tired old phrase, conjured up every time the latest scandal that is American public education makes the headlines. And this is why we homeschool.

Tolkien and Lewis would be on my side, by the way.

To quote Clive Staple, from On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Enlisting John Ronald Reuel for good measure, from Tolkien On Fairy-stories, “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

Yet I may take this Valheim business a slightly different direction, and also talk of James Cameron, and lawsuits, and "glory clouds." It cannot all be make-believe, and we have to know the real world when we come back to it, so we can engage with it appropriately.

But then that really is my point. If playing this game with my sons helps them to have a laboratory, for learning to be decisive, brave, creative, and to work together to accomplish noble and worthy deeds, even amidst perilous monsters, then the real world will be the better for us having played it together. Moreover, I believe it will be.

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